In females, we described three circuit mechanisms by which aIPg neurons co-regulate visual pathways, causing the fly to attend to nearby conspecifics.

We were surprised to discover in males that both aIPg and P1/pC1x neurons act in all three mechanisms (as opposed to one in females), and... 7/

We also generated 32 new split-GAL4 driver lines targeting single or subsets of P1/pC1x cell types. Optogenetic activation experiments revealed that some drive male courtship song and others regulate male-male interactions – a previously undescribed division of behavioral control! 6/

2) revealed surprising heterogeneity in sensory inputs and premotor outputs across P1/pC1x cell types, suggesting that sensory information is not propagated across the P1/pC1x population, but remains in separate, parallel streams (selected sensory inputs highlighted below). 5/

Leveraging the male CNS connectome, we:

1) found that P1/pC1x neurons disproportionately connect to other sexually-dimorphic cell types known to regulate social behavior, mAL and aSP-a neurons, forming a dense network. 4/

#malecns (collaborative effort with @janelia-flyem.bsky.social @camzoology.bsky.social @mrclmb.bsky.social @jefferis.bsky.social @stuartberg.bsky.social @beckett14.bsky.social @mmcosta.bsky.social Philipp Schlegel and others) split P1/pC1x into 48 cell types based on morphology and connectivity. 3/

Excited to announce our new pre-print (www.biorxiv.org/cgi/content/...)!

This collaborative work (co-led by Adriane Otopalik and Gerry Rubin) examines how neuronal circuits regulate social behaviors, like courtship🫶 and aggression🥊, across sexes. #neuroscience #Drosophila #WomenInSTEM 🧪1/

Excited to have this paper out (rdcu.be/d0T3Y)! In it, we focused on how flies know what to attend to in a complex environment (like below)?

We uncovered neuronal pathways through which social states (like aggression 🥊) modulate visual processing in #Drosophila. #WomenInSTEM #neuroscience 🧪 1/